I cant tell you how many times Ive gone to a house or business that had been damaged by water and now they have mold and people tell me that they didnt even know companies like mine existed. Their house usually smells and is full of mold because of lack of activity to mitigate the dwelling from the water intrusion. Most people do not know who to call. They dont even know to call their insurance agent. Or if they do know to call their agent, they dont want to because in this day and age they are worried about their premiums going up or that they might get dropped all together. Which happens all too often. They try to handle it themselves and the more they get into it they realize they are over their heads. Response Time is the number one issue when dealing with a water intrusion to your home or office. Wet always goes to dry, if it can. And by that I mean that water is not going to travel through vapor barriers. The longer the water saturates the structure, the more of the structure will get wet. We call this the "Wicking Effect" If its not wet now, it will be soon. Water migration in a structure that has been sitting can occur two ways, through migration. Wet to Dry. Or through the humidity. Add enough water to a structure, especially hot water, you will raise the Specific Humidity in the air enough that it will start to condense on materials that were not orinally from the cause of loss. This is called Secondary Damage.
We are setup to respond in Emergency situations. I have men On Call 24/7. My trucks are always loaded and ready to go at a moments notice. Whether it is 1pm or 1am. Our response time is the same. Barring traffic of course. I cant control that. Although I'm sure we have all fantasized about life without traffic.
The faster we get to the site , the more building materials we can dry. And less that has to be replaced. We can dry almost everything if we are called in the proper amount of time. Usually we can get anywhere within two hours from the time we receive the phone call. There are definitely building materials that cannot be saved however. Or the way that it was built makes it hard to dry. But they are few and far between. Usually any kind of vinyl flooring or cove base should be removed. Vinyl acts like a vapor barrier, I would remove the vinyl flooring in the kitchen for example to dry and save the wood subfoloring underneath it. Any kind of lamanent or floating floor is usually shot once it gets wet. It is usually put down with a foam padding underneath and vapor barrier, it is just best to remove that to dry and save the wood members underneath.
If we are called to respond to any clean water damage type situation within 24 to 36 hours (The quicker the better) we will dry out the structure and prevent any kind of fungal contamination.
What brought this post on was I went to look at a house for an insurance agent's client today. From the way the call came in and from what I was told about the situation from the agent, I thought it had happened today. When I arrived at the house, homeowner explained to me that it had happened last Thursday night at about 2am. He has been trying to clean it up since then. He finally called his agent this morning who in turn called us. Homeowner did not need mitigation, he needed a mold remediation. Homeowner was not happy when i told him that all the building materials that were still saturated needed to be removed from the structure. He wanted me to just install some air movers and dehumidifiers. I could not do that from my liability standpoint but thats a topic for another time.
Homeowner thought I was crazy and told the agent that as well. Thankfully I have know the agent for sometime. Agent relayed the same message to his client that I did. I have yet to hear from agent on how he wants me to proceed but it is a good bet they denied his claim because he didnt do his "Due Deligence" and take care of his home in a timely matter. Lesson to be learned.
Check out our chart on what happens to water and building materials over time.
You should always have a plan in place for these types of situation whether it is for your home or office. They dont give this information out with your insurance policy. But they should.
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